Kobe Bryant asks for trade from Lakers

Wednesday

LOS ANGELES -- Kobe Bryant asked to be traded from the Lakers on Wednesday, a day after calling the team's front office "a mess."

"I would like to be traded, yeah," Bryant told ESPN radio. "Tough as it is to come to that conclusion there's no other alternative, you know?"

Bryant, who helped the team win three consecutive NBA championships, has four years remaining on the seven-year, $136.4 million contract he signed July 15, 2004. That was a day after Shaquille O'Neal was traded to the Miami Heat.

Bryant became infuriated Tuesday when a Los Angeles Times columnist quoted what he called a Lakers insider as saying it was Bryant's insistence on getting away from O'Neal that prompted the trade to Miami.

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